


in sooth, I know not why I am so sad

by bellmare



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Homestuck Shipping Olympics, Incest, Pale Romance, Red Romance, lalondecest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 14:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/bellmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because a mother always does what is best for her children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in sooth, I know not why I am so sad

Slumbering in the long shadows cast by her missing mother, she dreams.  
  
She’s probably thirteen when it all begins.  
  
In her dreams, she’s treading roads of infinite possibility, trails of gold crisscrossing before her, labyrinthine paths pulsing with light. There’s a clammy chill which seeps into her bones with each moment she spends following winding threads of probability, an infernal hunger which gnaws and worries away at her nerves. Sometimes, she sees chasms and rifts in space, creatures many-eyed and limbed watching her silent passage through their dominion. They have no quarrel with her.  
  
Sometimes, she sees someone in robes of amber, hovering at the edges of her dreams. There’s much Roxy wants to say to her, for there’s something familiar about her, something which pulls at her like the moon on a midnight tide. _Mom_ , she wants to say. _Mom, is that you? Mom, please answer me._  
  
When she wakes up with her heart racing, a whispered mom? on the tip of her tongue, the reality sets in. She can dream all she wants, but her mother isn’t coming back. It’s not her mother she saw in her fevered dream, for they are not one and the same.  
  
Instead, she always sees a figure resplendent in saffron and gold at the very edges of her consciousness, facing down silent monstrosities as she holds Them far and back away from her.  
  
 _She is not yours for the picking._  
  
If They respond, it is not in a tongue she understands.  
  
 _Thank you_ , she wants to say, but the words never make their way out. Her mind moves sluggishly, like a sleeper in the dark, but by the time she opens her mouth she’s awake and shivering from the cold of a place where no light reaches.  
  
TG: it hapened again  
TG: i think i saw her  
TG: isa w my mom  
TG: wlel whtat i mean is tabt i don’t thinbk shes my mom lile in the same perso n who um  
TG: like my mom only nor really.  
TT: … I see.  
TT: Giving a concrete shape to your hallucinations and a name to your illusions …  
TT: That’s the first step to attachment.  
TT: Getting fixated with what is out of your reach will get you nowhere.  
TT: Don't get attached, Roxy. I don't want to see you get hurt.  
TT: Don't chase dreams. They'll only lead to more anguish on your part.  
TG: shtu up u know nothng

  
 .  
  
TT: Actually, I know that better than most.

.

 

Her dreams terrify her.  
  
They all start out the same – fleeting glimpses of a dark city of spires, an endless abyss above her head – but they feel incorporeal and unreal, dreams within dreams. Sometimes, she feels like she’s moving through space and over distant lands constantly in flux, fluid and ever-changing.  
  
Then comes the cold.  
  
It trails in her wake, malign and persistent, wreathed in whispers in a tongue which coils and squirms and wriggles like worms when she tries to listen and sift meaning from them.  
  
 **YO U WILL BE O UR S Y OU WIL L BE OURS YOU WI L L B E OUR SYO UW ILL BEOU R S**  
  
 She knows her days are numbered; it’s only a matter of time until they take hold of her, winding cold and clammy around her and crushing, until she’s another one of Their pawns. She knows they’ll persist until she’s a wreckage cast adrift without an anchor to tether her down – or until the Light chases her to the edges of space and guides her back to her room in the dark city.  
  
 _Thanks for looking out for me_ , she wants to say – but when she wakes up, there’s nobody there to thank.  
  
.  
  
TG: idk i lalways feel so t ir edd  
TG: like inever get enogugh sleeeep  
TG: adn i soemitems wake upin weird palces  
TG: and it ds weird a shti because i cant ememnebr how i got tehre  
TG: fucl  
TG: *fcukj  
TG: **fuck  
TG: fuccccck  
TG: wats wrgn wirhh meefdhkbjlkhhhlflmgf'orkjgtnfdddddvk clnb,asxzxxxxxcvg.  
  
.  
  
She Walks in her sleep.  
  
Dirk’s mentioned something along the lines before, and though the memories are never clear, at the edge of her dreams she knows there’s someone who’s looking out for her – and it may not be her Mom but that’s okay too.  
  
TT: It’s exhaustive work, you know. There’s a lot of info-collecting to be done.  
TT: Irons to put in the fire, so to speak.  
TT: It never hurts to know your enemies.  
TT: You’re making things a bit difficult what with floating off to fuckall-knows-where, but I want you to know that it’s fine.  
TT: It’s all fine.  
TT: I’ll always be there to bring you back.  
  
.  
  
TG: waht if theres noone to brigb me abck here irl  
TG: like nto in some purpleuy grape city  
TG: then whaht  
  
.  
  
Sometimes, she wakes up outside her house, curled up over where a waterfall used to run. Her eyes are full of afterimages of threading paths, winding bright-gold and daring her to follow.  
  
At those times, the thought of going back to a quiet prison of a house is too much to bear. At times like those, she’ll wriggle closer to the end of the ledge and stick her hands into the water which creeps ever-higher and think of a land of light and rain and flowing prismatic water she’s heard about from conversations with an alien stranger typing in grey.  
  
“Mom, mommy, mother,” she’ll repeat out loud, over and over until the words lose their meaning, and thinks of the woman she never got to meet.  
  
.  
  
They call to her.  
  
 **FOLL O W HER PA T H E MBRA C EY OUR LEGACYCLAI M WH A TISY OU R S**  
WI L L YOUSERV EU S A S SHEDI D BEF O R EY YOU  
  
 _She_ calls to her, too.  
  
 _Do you want to see me?_  
  
She hesitates. “Yes,” she says. In the darkness around her, Light flares, a white-hot starburst.  
  
 _Follow, child._  
  
.  
  
There are no spires and towers in this vision, only checkerboard grey upon white.  
  
The concrete beneath her toes leaches warmth into her skin. It’s been hours since sundown.  
  
 _Follow, dearest._  
  
“I’m coming, mom,” she wants to say, but all she manages is _gthr’ ytgtahn’th_.  
  
 **YO U W I LL OBE Y YO UWILLS UB M IT**  
  
.  
  
 She feels like she’s falling. The shock of hitting the water jolts her awake – but she’s already sinking like a stone, the light from the moon faint and warped through spreading ripples.  
  
Instinct tells her to open her mouth, to scream, to claw at the spiraling bubbles of air streaming from her mouth and nose.  
  
When she looks down, there is nothing but endless water.  
  
.  
  
 _If I die, I’ll be with my mom._  
  
It’s a simple line of reasoning. Elementary, really. Ha, ha, ha.  
  
 _Hey mom, sorry for being four hundred years late. Mom, I’m home._  
  
.  
  
The Light burns brightly, illuminating the water around her with a telltale insignia of a many-rayed sun.  
  
She isn’t sure who or what she was expecting.  
  
There’s a woman there – more of a girl, really, pale-eyed and solemn.  
  
Everything about her is faded, like a washed-out watercolour. She laces their fingers together; she’s trembling so hard her hands keep slipping - until her mother tightens her grip, fingernails biting against her knuckles.  
  
 _Am I dreaming?_  
  
Her mother smiles faintly; it’s like an oil slick, slow and bitter and cruel. It’s a feline smile, broad and lazy; danger hums at the base of Roxy’s skull, persistent and urgent.  
  
 _Why shouldn’t you be?_  
  
It isn’t her mother. It knows she knows. The tentacles, cool and inky-black against her skin, are proof enough.  
  
 _Who are you?_  
  
 _I am a fragment from a timeline rendered obsolete. You are correct in your assessments – I am not truly who you seek. It has been difficult, taking you to a place where the Light cannot so easily See, yet is still within my dominion – as well as Theirs._  
  
She wonders how long she’ll last here, bartering with Their mouthpiece. They’re still sinking, the water pressure building with every inch they drop. Instinct makes her gasp, convulsively, a motion she regrets the instant pain lances through her chest.  
  
 _How much of your mother do you think is left here, dearest? How many of the horrorterrors do you think she bargained with, before her pain was taken away, before the path she followed was severed?_  
  
Her not-mother edges closer, storm-bleached and terrible. Roxy can count her pale eyelashes, can feel a pulse that’s slow and sluggish under her cold skin.  
  
 _My sort-of-mom is a creepy sea monster_ , Roxy thinks, and wants to laugh and laugh and laugh until she throws up.  
  
She doesn’t know who speaks next – it could be her, or her mother – or maybe it’s both of them.  
  
 _Help me._  
  
Her mother kisses her forehead first, running her fingers through her bangs as she pushes them back.  
  
 _Help me._  
  
 **He l pme he _lp m e h e lpm e he lpmehel p me_**  
  
Rose kisses her as charcoal-grey tentacles wrap around her, winding around her neck and waist, enveloping her in a crushing embrace. She’s going to die here, in an artificial sea made by the Batterwitch, clinging desperately to an oxygen-deprivation-induced hallucination of something which may or may not be her mother.  
  
 _A mother will do what is best for her children_ , Rose says, and at the back of her mind is sounds familiar, somehow.  
  
.  
  
She can see the moonlight, breaking through flowing water. She’s ready to die by the time her head breaks through the waves; the air she gulps down burns her throat.  
  
“Why?”  
  
 _Because I made a promise to you. You are not Theirs, and never will be._  
  
Rose presses their foreheads together, before moving to kiss her on the cheek.  
  
“Where will you go now? Will you stay? Will I get to see you again?”  
  
 _I came because somebody had to bring you home. Somebody had to light up the right path for you, lest you strayed – as I did._  
  
Her mother helps her climb back up to her house. She’s storm-pale, no more corporeal than fog skimming over the morning waters. The only colour on her are from her eyes, fevered and overbright .  
  
Roxy knows that brittle glaze from hours spent staring listlessly at her own reflection after downing several bottles of liquor; it’s how her mother spent her last days, perhaps – easing herself into an oblivion she knows will consume everything she’s worked for.  
  
“Thank you,” she says, and this time, her mother smiles.  
  
.  
  
TG: what if  
TG: waht if playin thisgaem will brign my momm abck  
TG: …………..  
TG: yeha thats what ill do  
TG: thats the only reaosn ill play t his game  
  
.  
  
TT: Once you’ve had a taste of something, the memory of knowing it was yours – even if for a while – will destroy you.  
TT: Are you sure this is what you want?  
TG: ofc  
TG: its what we boht want am i rite  
TG: to see dead ppl agian

**Author's Note:**

> Or: unhealthy relationships between sort-of-mothers-and-daughters-only-ectoiologically-wait-what, oh yeah there is snogging too, underwater snogging: the fic.
> 
> **ETA: haha almost a year later I fix my coding.


End file.
